We present a novel approach to three-dimensional optical microscopy, named correlation light-field microscopy (CLM). This approach is based on correlation plenoptic imaging and exploits correlations between intensity fluctuations, intrinsic in chaotic light, to retrieve both spatial information about the intensity distribution of light on the sample and angular information about the directions of propagation of the light rays. Such a plenoptic (or light-field) information about the sample enables an extension of the natural depth of field, while avoiding the intrinsic loss of spatial resolution occurring in conventional light-field microscopy. We discuss the capability of CLM of refocusing out-of-focus planes of the sample, paving the way to scanning-free three-dimensional reconstruction while keeping the at-focus resolution at the diffraction limit showing a brief comparison with light-field microscopy. Finally we discuss the perspective of improvements in CLM acquisition speed by the integration of SPAD array sensors in the setup.
We present novel methods to perform plenoptic imaging at the diffraction limit by measuring intensity correlations of light. The first method is oriented towards plenoptic microscopy, a promising technique which allows refocusing and depth-of-field enhancement, in post-processing, as well as scanning free 3D imaging. To overcome the limitations of standard plenoptic microscopes, we propose an adaptation of Correlation Plenoptic Imaging (CPI) to the working conditions of microscopy. We consider and compare different architectures of CPI microscopes, and discuss the improved robustness with respect to previous protocols against turbulence around the sample. The second method is based on measuring correlations between the images of two reference planes, arbitrarily chosen within the tridimensional scene of interest, providing an unprecedented combination of image resolution and depth of field. The results lead the way towards the realization of compact designs for CPI devices.
We present a new technique for performing three-dimensional optical microscopy based on correlation plenoptic imaging. This approach, named Correlation Plenoptic Microscopy (CPM), exploits correlations between intensity fluctuations of pseudo-thermal light to retrieve plenoptic information about the sample, i. e. both spatial information about the intensity distribution of light and angular information about the propagation direction of the light rays. This leads to an enhancement of the depth of field, overcoming the sacrifice of lateral resolution required in conventional plenoptic microscopy. The intrinsic capability to refocus out-of-focus planes of the sample enables scanning-free three-dimensional reconstruction with the resolution kept at the diffraction limit. We show a setup to perform CPM with a microscope objective and present calculations of the correlation function for this specific case. Moreover we demonstrate with simulations that CPM improves the resolution, for a given depth of field, with respect to conventional optical microscopy.
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